The Yoga of the Tree

A talk by Adi Da Samraj
April 28, 1996

Adi Da Samraj: In My “Sadhana Years”, I experienced times when, while walking outside, as soon as I came into eye contact with the vegetation, the energy of the body would leap out. The unity with the trees would be inherently obvious—the vast space of it, the life-space of it would be revealed. I would hold the trees. I was not merely being affectionate—it wasn’t that kind of a thing. My intention was to have close contact.

When I held on to the trees, I could feel the “current” working in them. It is the same as in the spinal line of the human being—very profound and equalized. They are in samadhi. Trees are true contemplatives. Their contemplation is constant. Especially the Great Trees. There is this intense force, spinal force, central force. It is the same force as felt in the human being, when it is allowed, and unlocked from the knots.

Those occasions were not absolutely unique. There had been similar incidents in childhood also. The later occasions were a relaxation and a kind of recollection of My association with trees when I was a child. When I was a child, I would have the same experience, because there were woods all around. I used to spend My time there. I preferred spending time in the woods more than doing things like sports. My purpose was to be there among those trees and feel the likeness to the spinal force. You could say there was a kind of initiation associated with that, or coming into coincidence with the energy form, with real knowing. Of course, this occurred on many other occasions as well, but there among those trees it was so. So I used to like to go to the woods when I was a child, and spend a lot of time there every day.

There was not only a recollection of this childhood experience of the likeness to the spinal force, but a noticing of the importance of it. I was noticing what I had always been noticing. The spinal force is the primal structure of the body-mind. The fundamental structure is in the trees. Trees are at the origin of the life-process that is associated with humankind also.

Vegetation—particularly what can be taken harmlessly from the trees, that which they give off freely—is the natural food, then. You may have to prepare the body to use it, but that is not a big deal usually. There is a kind of life-code information in vegetation. It is knowledge in the body, this nutrition. It is a likeness, and (therefore) it allows the body’s recognition of its fundamental form and structure and equanimity, or basis for equanimity. This is why I recommend to you to practice right diet in this form, and to consistently do so.

It is a knowledge. Where did you get that knowledge? From those trees. When you allow the body to be coincident with their message, their energy, their properties, the body feels good—generally speaking, if other things are not interfering. Then the life-force is steady, as in a tree—rather than jiggly, like in a monkey or a busy human. The energy is profoundly steady. It is profound.

Why bother yourself with inherited cravings in this silly animal body that pretends it is not a plant, that pretends it is not steady as a tree, that it is more like the fruit-eating bird and the jiggly monkey. Why take its advice? Try this diet. See how it feels, you see. It feels good. You see? You don’t have to listen to the jiggly monkey anymore.

When I speak of the frontal yoga, I am not merely talking about something down the front of your body. Energy is all-surrounding. That is why I tell you to practice conductivity. One of the elements of conductivity practice is to “radiate from the heart in all directions”.

Therefore, the native form is the tree form. That is the model of conductivity. The energy descends all around—even just natural energy. Likewise, you can feel Me, My Divine Spirit-Force, beyond that. All of that simply Inheres in My “Brightness”.